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Contents
Foreword & Acknowledgement
Before the White Man/Coming of the
First Settlers
DeMotte Grows into a Town
Early Transportation & Farming
The First Schools
Dredging of the Grand Kankakee Marsh
Leonard Swart (Interview)
Casper Belstra (Interview)
Northern Indiana Land Company
The Halleck Telephone Company
DeMotte Mercantile Company
DeMotte Library Grows
Cheever's Garage
Eighty Years of Community Banking
Fairchild & Tanner History
Earl Schwanke Article
Keener Township Fire Department
(Art) Lageveen Looks Back
Fire Almost Destroys DeMotte in 1936
Kankakee Valley Post-News
Asparagus & Truck Farming
Businessmen's Association
Lageveen Remembers Incorporation
Belstra Remembers When...
Kankakee Valley Schools
DeMotte Elementary School
(DeMotte) Christian School
Mark L. DeMotte
Charlie Halleck
Walter Roorda, State Representative
C-SELM
Van Keppel Construction Company
Fire Destroys Main Building at Kaper's
The Hamstra Group
DeMotte Historical Society
Tysen's Family Food Center
Belstra Milling
The Fire of 1992
United Methodist Church
DeMotte Christian Church
Community Bible Church
Calvary Assembly of God
Bethel Christian Reformed Church
First Christian Reformed Church
Faith
Lutheran Church
St. Cecilia Catholic Church
United Pentecostal
First Reformed Church
American Reformed Church
DeMotte Town Court
Incorporation of DeMotte
August 10 Incorporation Hearing
September 1965 Incorporation
First Town Board Election
The First Town Board
DeMotte Town Council 1969-1997
DeMotte Town Hall
DeMotte Park Board
Wastewater Treatment Begins
DeMotte Chamber of Commerce
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Fire almost destroys
DeMotte in 1936
April 15, 1936 dawned a beautiful day
in DeMotte. Little did anyone know, or suspect that before the day was
over almost the entire business district would be in a smoldering ruin.
During the day the weather had changed, the wind had picked-up and was now
out of the northwest. In the alley behind the stores on the west side of
the main drag a trash fire was burning. It was about 3 p.m. and a strong
wind was coming from the northwest fanning the fire out of control. The
fire is believed to have first spread to Al Konovsky's Lumber Yard nearby.
Once the lumber yard was on fire, conditions produced a domino effect on
the rest of the businesses. The fire quickly spread to William Swart and
Co. store and Mary's Restaurant next door. The fire was out of control and
spreading south. Hank Starkey's Model T was in the alley behind the stores
and it went up in smoke.
Embers were blown by the strong northwest wind across the street. Soon
buildings on the east side of the street were also in flames. The Keener
Township Volunteer Fire Department had only been organized only a few
weeks before the fire. The department had 10 members. They had bought a
Model T truck from Hebron which hadn't yet been delivered.
 As
a bucket brigade was being formed, the alarm went out to fire departments
in the surrounding towns asking for help. Hebron, Wheatfield, Crown Point,
Lowell, Schneider and Rensselaer responded to the call. Lack of vehicles
and a central water supply hampered the firefighters. Water had to be
transported from the Sekema Ditch about a half mile away.
On the west side of the street the fire was brought under control at John
Terborg's Colonial Coffee Company. Only three businesses were left
standing on that block. At that time Lageveen's store was on the west side
of the street and was rebuilt on the east side after the fire.
A bucket brigade was credited with saving the Bank of DeMotte but the
bank's plate glass windows were blown out from the intense heat.
Sam McGinness had left home and come downtown to help fight the fire.
While he was gone, flying embers caught his house on fire three blocks
away and burned it to the ground. The McGinness house and John Bunning's
place were the only two homes burned that day.
The fire had leveled or damaged 19 businesses and two
homes in town. Three buildings in Al Konovsky's lumber yard had burned.
William Swart grocery and hardware building was gone. Mary's Restaurant,
Art Burk's barber shop, H.C. DeKock & Son grocery, Herman Osting's shoe
store, Otto DeYoung & Sons hardware & implements (authorized John Deere
dealership), DeYoung pool room, the new post office, the Hart Building
which housed Ruth's Restaurant and Bakery, were all destroyed.
Jake Bonstra, shoemaker, lost his shop. Roy True lost his barbershop. John
Bunning was justice of the peace. He watched as his real estate office and
home went up in flames. Miraculously, no one suffered any serious
injuries.
 George
Konovsky, who was a very young boy at the time, lived in the stone house
which sets across the street from Holley's Restaurant and Lounge. Konovsky
said before the fire got a good start, he remembers telling his mother
that smoke was coming from the lumber yard. He said he remembers the
sounds of cans of groceries exploding all night long while the fire was
still smoldering.
In a 1988 interview given to the Kankakee Valley Post-News concerning the
fire, Helen (Watson) Swartzell remembered the excitement and how people
tried to save what they could. She was working at Curtin Bros. Restaurant
at the time. The restaurant was owned by her two brothers. She told how
they had a marble soda fountain in their restaurant, "In the excitement, a
group of men carried it out. After the fire we could not get it back into
the store. It was too heavy. No one could lift it. We finally had to break
it up and get a new one."
The day after the fire about 25,000 people came from as far away as
Chicago to see the damage and devastation. About 500 people lived in
DeMotte at the time. It was estimated about 6000 cars came into the small
town, creating quite a traffic jam. The state police were called in to
prevent looting.
The fire did an estimated $150,000 damage which was a large sum in the
middle of the Great Depression. About half that amount was covered by
insurance.
Within a couple of days, the store owners were doing business. They
reopened wherever they could. Coming through the 1936 fire and rebuilding
the town into the DeMotte of today is a tribute to the people of DeMotte
and the way they face adversity.
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